Theability to out-innovate yourself is a managed skillset carefully crafted into the mindset of truly “product driven” companies. This is neither a want or need, but a “must have” if you are to be an “authentic” leader within your product category.

Many companies find this mindset difficult, if not impossible to follow through on, especially when you are tracking to gain market share with a product at the end of its life cycle. As Jack Welch has been quoted; “Control your own destiny or someone else will..”. This rings true to companies that find themselves at the end of the product life cycle with competitors, usually commodity driven, starting to eat into shelve space, price point compression dwindles margins and market share starts to fall off a cliff.

This scenario is why it is so critical to properly plan your product life cycle, and always look for ways to “Out-Innovate” yourself. In doing so, you keep the creative “bloodlines” flowing, instill pride within the brand, which allows you to build “authentic” marketing strategies wrapped around a product that is truly a progressive improvement or reinvents the category. Their are many brands who are “torch bearers” for this process, and should be a considered the standard for “Authentic” Product Life Cycle Innovation engines. Probably the best example is Apple, who with their constant pipeline of ” mystique” driven innovations has led the charge in our digital revolution that is part of our daily lives. They take risks, they take market share, they create markets..!